


Carry That Weight

by kellyzipcode



Category: SEVENTEEN (Band)
Genre: Cowboy Bebop AU, Explicit Language, Gen, Guns, Hate to Love, M/M, Minor Character Death, Slow Burn, Violence, bounty hunter!hoshi, bounty hunter!woozi, the intergalactic travels of svt's 96 line
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2020-11-27
Updated: 2020-11-27
Packaged: 2021-03-09 21:41:31
Rating: Mature
Warnings: Graphic Depictions Of Violence
Chapters: 2
Words: 7,902
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/27733216
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/kellyzipcode/pseuds/kellyzipcode
Summary: Jihoon has spent years traveling the galaxy, looking for nothing and everything at the same time.
Relationships: Kwon Soonyoung | Hoshi & Lee Jihoon | Woozi
Kudos: 5





	1. SESSION #1, Cosmic Harmonies

**Author's Note:**

> hello hello! this is a 96 line centric cowboy bebop au! while there is certainly a plot, it's very loosely linear, with each chapter detailing a specific snap shot of the crew's journey on their ship, the Uju.
> 
> if you're interested, [here](https://open.spotify.com/playlist/4hsYi4O9Ooxmy5elYxb8pn?si=VkYnwC4nRmyPWmPZoO-Icw) is a spotify playlist with some vibes bc it's bebop so music is a necessity.

“Your beef and broccoli recipe needs some serious help,” Jihoon says as he tosses back the rest of his Bloody Mary, slumping down onto the sticky bar-top in spite of himself. “I feel like death.”

Out of the corner of his eye, he sees Wonwoo look at him, unamused. “Shut the fuck up,” the other man grumbles, grabbing for his own nearly empty glass. “My cooking is fine. You just don’t know your limits when it comes to alcohol.” 

Jihoon waves a placating hand in the air before thrusting his glass forward to the bartender for a refill. “Yeah, yeah,” he says, “Stop being so reckless, look after yourself, all the usual shit, right?”

“I didn’t say that, but if the shoe fits,” Wonwoo answers smugly. “Besides, if it weren’t for your hangover, maybe we’d already have our hands on that bounty and money for dinner tonight.”

Jihoon groans. He’s always hated the patronizing side of Wonwoo. “Yeah, yeah, and it’s my fault we’re stranded here too, right?”

“It is,” Wonwoo says matter-of-factly as he stands up to leave. “You wrecked the cruiser into the Uju. So I’m going to go scrounging for parts so we can get a move on while you think of how to track down Hoshi. And thanks for paying for my drink.”

“Wha—?” but before Jihoon can even get the word out, Wonwoo’s making his way through the exit, a mocking wave thrown over his shoulder in Jihoon’s direction.

“That’ll be 13,000 woolongs,” the bartender supplies unhelpfully. 

-

By the time Jihoon has returned from his second trip to the bathroom, the rundown diner is substantially more crowded. Though the moons of Jupiter felt almost like a second home with how often he found himself there, Jihoon can’t remember ever stopping by Io on purpose. There was no reason to. Covered in volcanoes and entirely crusted over in centuries of old magma, the moon felt little more than a rest stop between the more developed Callisto and Ganymede. Both he and Wonwoo knew that trying to find parts for the battered cruiser was a lost cause; truth be told, Wonwoo’s not chewing out Jihoon as much as he deserves, and Jihoon’s thankful for it.

He doesn’t spend too much time questioning the diner’s peculiar spike in business, most of his attention focused on his splitting headache, until he overhears some excited talk from the table behind him. Apparently there’s some fugitive named Lotto on the run with explosives—he vaguely remembers seeing the listing on _BIG SHOT_ —but the bounty attached to his name is mere chump change compared to the one for his current target, Hoshi. Besides, he has no ship, no artillery, nothing but a lone gun in his pocket, and just enough woolongs for one more drink. Just thinking about this new bounty felt like a waste of time.

He’s in the middle of cracking an egg for his next drink when it happens. A shrill scream erupts from the corner booth, and Jihoon glances over to see one of the diner waitresses being harassed by a group of grubby men.

“Since when is it a bounty hunter’s job to chase after an innocent woman instead of chasing after money?” booms a voice over the commotion. Out of his peripheral, Jihoon sees another man step up to the group, gently pulling the waitress out of one of the men’s grasp, but his headache has him going back to his drink. It’s not long before the beginnings of a fight start to break out—a sharp yell, the angry slap of skin, the dull crunch of bone—but Jihoon hears it as if it's coming through a grimy filter. He hardly pays it attention (his pounding head makes sure of that), even when someone knocks into his shoulder, but then his hangover-muddled mind is suddenly drawn to a growing wet spot between his legs. It has him looking down at his crotch, only to find the egg yolk sadly sitting on the seam of his pants. That’s all it takes for him to snap.

“You ruined my egg,” he grunts as he stands up, before he aims a solid hook at the man’s jaw that has the rest of the diner shutting up, the initial fight paused.

“I _needed_ that egg,” he announces indignantly as he slams his heel on the man’s foot.

“Who the hell is this guy!?” one of the other men yells. “Get him, too!” And then he and his friends are descending on Jihoon, the other man all but forgotten.

Jihoon sighs. He doesn’t have the energy for this today, he barely has the energy to think, and now he has to do fucking laundry, but the technique of these guys is sloppy at best. It’ll be quick work.

He ducks out of the way of their fists, hands back in his pockets, as he aims a solid knee at the crotch of his attacker. As he doubles over in pain, the other man from before—the one that had stepped in to help the waitress—cracks an elbow down on the guy’s head, sending him to the floor in a heap. Just as the others raise their hands to attack, Jihoon sends the heel of his hand up into the nose of one of the assailants and his elbow into the throat of another, allowing the rescuer from before the chance to punch the last one square in his jaw. That’s all it takes to have the group of men scuttling out of the diner.

Jihoon straightens back up, shoving his hands deeper into his pockets and looks the other man in the eye. He’s tall and burly, the kind of man that others want to be, but with eyes so big and lashes so long that the contrast between his face and frame is a little jarring.

“Thanks for the help,” the man says, sticking out his hand. “Can’t stand these objectifying bastards.”

Jihoon thinks about it for a moment, then extends his hand to grasp the man’s own. He nods in solidarity. It’s true, men are scum.

“Name’s S.Coups. Most people call me Coups,” the man says before looking Jihoon up and down, eyes lingering on his sodden pants, and nodding to the bar. “Have a seat. The drinks are on me. Looks like you might need it.”

Jihoon’s cracking a new egg safely into his glass as Coups grimaces. “Disgusting.”

“What, you have a problem with my taste in drinks?”

The scowl on the man’s face deepens. “I don’t know how you can stomach that.”

“For your information, It’s called a Prairie Oyster and it’s great for hangovers,” Jihoon replies as he stirs the contents of his glass. He taps the spoon on the rim and downs the drink in one go.

“Oh, I know what it is. You’re the second person I know who could drink those.” Seemingly out of nowhere, a large, fluffy cat jumps out from behind the bar and into Coups’s lap.

“Yeah? Who’s the first?”

Coups looks softly at the cat and scratches it behind the ear. “It was my brother.”

A dull pang hits his own chest at the words, one he’s long since grown used to. Jihoon’s about to reply when a small group of people approach them, fistfuls of money in their hands. 

“Can I have another guess today?” a woman asks, thrusting the bills in Coups’s direction. “Please?”

“Me too, me too,” a man beside her pleads.

Coups chuckles heartily as he extends his hand to accept the money, jostling the cat in his lap. “Sure go ahead.”

“Cha Seojoon!”

“Nope,” Coups says with a satisfied smile on his face. He goes back to stroking the cat and it starts purring softly.

“Cha Sanghoon!” the other man pipes up excitedly, but Coups’s shake of his head has him immediately deflating. 

“Looks like I get to keep my stash for another day,” he says, pocketing the small wad of cash into his jacket with his other hand. “Keep trying, though. Maybe one day you’ll guess correctly.” This does little to comfort them, as the two plod away dejectedly. 

“Famous around these parts then?” Jihoon asks, a small part of his head starting to feel like it’s returning to a normal functioning state.

Coups smirks. “You could say that. My streak is something of legend. In all of three years no one has been able to guess my real name correctly. You wanna try your luck?”

Jihoon thinks of the humbling sum of money sitting in his pocket and shakes his head. “I’m afraid I’m too out of my depth. My lack of intuition is embarrassing.”

Coups laughs under his breath again, and claps Jihoon on the shoulder. “Seems like your intuition was just fine to me back there,” he says, nodding in the direction of their earlier scuffle. “What’s your name, since we’re on the topic?”

“Some people call me Woozi,” Jihoon says without a second thought; he liked to keep Jihoon behind closed doors.

“Well, nice to meet you, sometimes Woozi,” Coups says with a friendly smile before his face shifts to something darker as he looks around the room. “This is Chilli, by the way,” he adds, affectionately scratching the cat under the chin. It preens. “A bummer all this filth is in town. This diner is one of our favorite stops.”

“Hmmm,” Jihoon hums noncommittally, dumping a couple ice cubes into his mouth to chew on them.

“Fucking hate bounty hunters,” Coups says, the disdain plain on his face as he stirs his own drink absentmindedly, other hand still petting the cat, its purrs still rumbling in its throat. “They just view people as prizes. Nothing more, nothing less than a paycheck.”

“Huh,” Jihoon says, smiling more to himself than to the man next to him, “you really think all bounty hunters are that way?” 

“I know they are.” Jihoon doesn’t miss the way Coups rolls his eyes. And he can’t blame him; Jihoon would be the first to admit that, yes, all bounty hunters were money-hungry lowlives (his empty wallet and even emptier stomach can vouch for him). Coups sighs, an easy smile smoothing out his features. “At least there are some quality people that occasionally show up amongst the riff-raff. What brought you here?”

Jihoon tosses another ice cube into his mouth and chews on it. “Need ship parts. Didn’t really plan to stop here. My buddy is out looking for them right now. We’re trying to get to Callisto.”

“Callisto? I’m headed there next, if you need a lift.” He throws a thumb over his shoulder in the direction of the door, Chilli chirping at being shuffled. “I’m a cargo hauler. There’s plenty of room on my ship for yours.”

As shy as Jihoon is, he’s not stupid. He sheepishly rubs the back of his neck. “Yeah, actually, that’d be great.”

A series of beeps erupts from the transmitter on Jihoon’s watch, right next to where his wrist is still raised by his ear, then Wonwoo’s gruff voice cuts through the din of the diner, clear as day. “Woozi, I got a lead on Hoshi. Bounty’s gone up since last time, too.”

Coups’s mouth drops open in what is either shock or disgust, Jihoon can’t really tell. Maybe both.

“Yeah,” Jihoon says, silencing his watch and downing the last of his ice cubes. “Bounty hunters. Scum of the earth.”

-

Coups turns out to be nothing short of a saint and still lets Jihoon, Wonwoo, and their mess of a ship, the Uju, bum a ride on his freightliner. The trade-off is that he gets to keep playing his heavy metal music, and he plays it as loud as he wants.

“Can’t you turn this down?” Wonwoo blurts loudly, a scowl etched into the lines of his face. Jihoon’s ears feel like they’re two seconds away from bleeding but he has to admit, it’s also kind of nice.

“Sorry!” Coups calls over his shoulder from the pilot’s seat, “can’t hear you!”

Wonwoo groans but then Chilli jumps into his lap and curls up and his irritation melts away, just a little.

The music finally does come to a stop once they approach the hyperspeed gate to Callisto and Coups switches to his space traffic transmission radio. Though Jihoon’s ears are still ringing, he looks at Wonwoo and asks, “So what info did you get about Hoshi?”

“He was last seen in Callisto, apparently,” he answers. Jihoon doesn’t miss the way Chilli is now cradled in his arms. “Didn’t get any parts from him, but a mechanic back there let it slip that he’d worked on his fighter jet a couple days ago. So either you just have stupid good luck making friends or we just have stupid good luck in general.”

Hoshi had one of the largest gambling debts in the galaxy and a 5,000,000 woolong bounty placed on his head because of it. He never used his real name anywhere, making him almost impossible to track down. Aside from his alias, the only known information about him was his infamous tiger-clad fighter jet. Other than that, Hoshi was virtually untraceable and as much as Jihoon loved having enough money just to eat, he loved a good challenge even more.

“What?” comes Coups’s startled cry from the front of the ship. It pulls Jihoon’s attention back to the radio transmission. He also notices they’ve come to a complete stop—the traffic is as dense as a black hole.

“Some asshole just blew out the tail end of my hauler,” comes a distorted voice from the other end. “Just rammed right into me.”

“Are you alright?” Coups asks, voice laced with concern. His eyes are narrowed and scanning in front of him. Jihoon almost wonders if he’s forgotten they’re there.

“Yeah, I’m fine, got into a hit-and-run. Bastard cut in front of me, rams into me, and then just scrams outta there. Shit, I gotta make him pay for repairs at least. Let me know if you see him, Coups. He was speeding your way.”

“Yeah, sure,” Coups agrees without a second thought. “How do I spot him?”

“Ugly as hell ship, some dragon painted on the side. Hard to miss.”

Coups squints at the traffic in front of him. The gate to Callisto was one of the most bustling in the galaxy. Trying to find a specific ship in this chaos was like trying to bet where a shooting star would appear next.

“BINGO!” Coups calls and before Jihoon can even fully feel the shock, his guts fly to his throat as Coups shifts into gear, all but careening through the traffic in the direction of a bright green ship ahead of them, a garish dragon adorning its side.

“Are you insane!?” comes Wonwoo’s shout from behind them. When Jihoon glances back at him, he sees Chilli still perfectly asleep in his lap.

“I’m not insane, just a great flyer!” Coups yells back, a hint of derangement behind his wide smile.

Maybe it’s the obvious sense of commotion they’re creating around them, but the green ship seems to sense it’s being tracked and pulls out of the traffic with about just as much finesse as Coups.

The size of the fighter jet is nothing compared to Coups’s bulky freightliner, but it’s wide and it’s fast, and has no problem speeding ahead. Jihoon isn’t surprised when Coups doesn’t give way and only accelerates even faster, leaning forward with a determined look in his eyes. He gets it—there’s just something about the chase.

They finally gain ground on the jet when they approach an old, abandoned satellite. The ship is more or less stilled, trying desperately to get in through one of the smaller openings despite its large wingspan.

“What do you say we ram right into it?” Coups says through gritted teeth. “An eye for an eye.”

Jihoon means to say something back but the more he looks at the struggling ship ahead of them, the more he feels like there’s something he’s forgetting. It’s only when Coups has shifted into his highest gear and they’re shooting straight towards the ship that he remembers. He’s seen the ship before, just once, on a segment of _BIG SHOT,_ featuring the explosives-laundering fugitive Lotto.

“Stop! That ship is laced with nitro explosives!” he shouts, reaching for the ship’s brake. “You hit it, we all die!”

Wonwoo’s groan behind them is desolate, but Coups doesn’t seem phased by the possibility of imminent death. Together, he and Jihoon try to pull back on the lever for the brake to no avail, the ship hurtling towards the other.

Jihoon squeezes his eyes shut, waiting for the impact, bemoaning the fact that he’s going to die with such a measly amount of money to his name. There’s a loud bump, and loud clanging as something crumbles around the freightliner, but there’s no blast of white light, no burning on his skin.

When Jihoon opens his eyes again, he finds they’re in a tight chasm, sandwiched between Lotto’s ship and a mass of collapsed rock and metal.

“We’re alive,” Wonwoo sighs heavily from behind, though it sounds like he lost at least five years off his life.

Jihoon squints ahead, his intuition sending his senses into overdrive. “I wouldn’t get too excited.”

“What do you mean?” Coups say, wide eyes trained on him.

“You see those fissures up ahead?” He points in the distance, through jagged stalagmites, toward a group of clearly intentional fissures. Coups does not nod, but Jihoon knows he understands immediately.

“This is an old mining satellite. And that ship,” he says, thrusting a finger towards Lotto’s jet, “is a ticking time bomb.”

“What are we gonna do? How do we get out?” Coups says, sounding all the more desperate as he looks behind them only to find their path blocked on all sides. “Can we just push him out?”

“Fat chance.” Jihoon’s had his fair share of experiences with explosives. The glass eyeball in his right eye can attest to that. “Let me out. I have an idea.”

“Care to share with the class?” Wonwoo asks.

“Our ticket out is right there,” Jihoon says, pointing directly at Lotto’s ship, “packed inside that jet.”

“Are you insane?” Coups asks, his voice finally giving way to panic.

“Nope,” Jihoon says, hoisting himself out of his seat and shooting a smirk in Coups’s direction. “Just a great flyer.”

Wonwoo and Coups help him suit up and get into the pod of his flyer, and in no time, he’s slowly drifting towards the fighter jet in front of them.

As he comes closer to Lotto’s ship, he sees the massive pile of rocks that had crashed into the front, leaving a gory mess of the cockpit. So much for the bounty he could’ve scored.

“Be careful, Woozi,” comes Wonwoo’s fuzzy voice through the pod’s transmitter.

“Yeah, yeah,” Jihoon says back as he approaches the ship’s outer control panel. “Careful. My middle name.”

“You don’t have a middle name,” Wonwoo deadpans.

“I could,” Jihoon replies as he gently shifts the arms of his pod and begins working. “How about Edward? That has a ring to it.”

“Can you just focus, moron?” Wonwoo’s exasperated words do little to hide the tremor in his voice.

The wires are small, smaller than almost anything Jihoon has worked with before. And his pod racer already wasn’t in the best shape— _if only I had any artillery on this busted up piece of shit I could’ve blown us out of here by now_ —but the wiring is thankfully the same as any other standard jet so the work is easy. As he slowly works his way into the guts of the ship, he finds that behind them is what seems like an entire inner layer of nitro. He takes a deep breath, quickly thinking through the steps of his plan. It’s an all-or-nothing kind of situation. His favorite.

He delicately shifts one of the pod’s pincer arms and manages to grab a pod of nitro. A whistling gas starts to blow out of the sides, even as he barely brushes against it. Touch-sensitive. Great.

“Now what?” comes Coups’s worried voice over the transmission. 

“Easy,” Jihoon breathes. “I’ve got this pod programmed to shoot towards the exit in 40 seconds.”

“And what are you gonna do?” Coups asks gingerly, sounding like he doesn’t want to know the answer.

“My famous floating act,” Jihoon answers, stuffing a spare pair of earplugs into his ears as he presses the button to release the door. “Now open up! Don’t keep me waiting!”

“You’re gonna WHAT?” Wonwoo yells.

Jihoon doesn’t take time to reply, instead unbuckling his seatbelt, letting the lack of gravity pull him into the air. His feet only just clear the door before the ship takes off without him, nitro in tow. He knows he’s only got seconds and thankfully Coups’s ship isn’t far.

He can see the open door, can see Coups’s proffered hand, but try as he might, he keeps floating in the wrong direction. Like a reflex, he pulls out his handgun, carefully firing it in the direction of a small bit of debris from Lotto’s ship. The force from the shot ricochets him towards Coups, and he can feel the brush of their fingers as he glides right past, his chances of escape slowly narrowing.

A bright light catches his eye then, as the pod makes contact with the mining blockage in the distance and explodes. He sighs, resigning himself to death, a little annoyed that after everything he’s just going to die like this, but then a strong grip is on his wrist and he’s hoisted into the ship.

He keeps his eyes shut firmly, feels the hold on his wrist only tighten as the seconds pass by. It’s Wonwoo’s giant sigh of relief that tells him they’re still alive. When he opens his eyes, the entire ship is in disarray, all of Coups’s possessions floating around them like softly falling snow.

It takes a moment for everyone to come to, and in that moment, a tarnished silver locket drifts into Jihoon’s field of vision. Inside is a black and white photo, one that’s seen too much wear and tear. In the photo, Coups looks much younger, much more put together, classically handsome rather than rugged. And next to him, just under a message that reads _To Seungcheol_ , is a face Jihoon hasn’t seen in a long time.

Once the present-day Coups has gathered himself and shifts the ship into gear and Wonwoo is breathing normally, Chilli again safely nestled in his lap, Jihoon takes the plunge.

“Thanks for the help, Choi Seungcheol,” Jihoon says and Coups’s eyes go wide.

“What—how did you—?”

“This,” Jihoon says, shoving the locket into Coups’s fist. “Any bounty hunter knows about Choi Minki and his brother, Seungcheol. Minki pulled off some of the biggest bounties before...”

A faraway look enters Coups’s—Seungcheol’s—eyes. For a brief moment, Jihoon thinks he’s crossed a line, but then Seungcheol smiles back at him softly, earnestly.

“He was a good boy,” he says and the words rock Jihoon for a moment. It feels weird hearing such a familiar phrase come from someone else’s mouth for a change, but he’s startled back to the present when Seungcheol roughly clasps his shoulder. He expects him to continue and when he doesn’t, Jihoon’s surprised to find that they drift into a thick, mutual silence that feels louder than any heavy metal.

“We’re about ten minutes out,” Seungcheol says suddenly, breaking Jihoon from his reverie. “I’ll drop you guys off at Oberon’s Belt.”

“Oberon’s Belt?” Wonwoo interjects from the back, leaning forward into the small spot between him and Seungcheol. Jihoon had almost forgotten he was there. “I thought you were gonna take us to your mechanic?”

Seungcheol hums. “I think there’s something you’ll really want to see at Oberon’s.”

Wonwoo sets his jaw. “I get it, you think all bounty hunters are trash but believe it or not, neither of us have a gambling problem.”

“You’re right about that. You are trash,” Seungcheol gloats with a self-satisfied smile. “But if you don’t want info on Hoshi then I’ll just keep it to myself.”

“What—?” Jihoon blurts, leaning into Seungcheol’s space so suddenly that he accidentally elbows Wonwoo in the nose. “What do you know about him? He’s impossible to track.”

Seungcheol doesn’t look at him, but the corner of his mouth crooks further up into a smirk.

“No he isn’t. Not if you have the right connections.”

Jihoon goes to say something, but words fail him. He’s not good at being caught off guard. Seungcheol can tell. “What, cat got your tongue?” he asks, nodding in Wonwoo’s (and Chilli’s) direction.

“He’s currently got a gig at Oberon’s. As a Baccarat dealer,” Seungcheol continues, not reacting to the shock plain on both Jihoon and Wonwoo’s faces. Jihoon manages to collect himself first, but out of the corner of his eye he can see Wonwoo’s mouth still hung open in surprise.

“How do you know him?” Jihoon asks, practically interrupting the other man.

“Uh-uh,” Seungcheol tuts with a quick glance at Jihoon. “I tell you one thing and suddenly you think I’m going to spill all of my secrets? What, do you think we’re friends or something?”

Jihoon grins at the implications. “Maybe I do.”


	2. SESSION #2, Can't Tame the Tiger

Seungcheol lets them and their ship off at the parking dock of Oberon’s Belt with an uncomfortably heartfelt goodbye and a fervent promise to meet again. But Jihoon himself isn’t a man of many words, so he lets it go, knowing that his uncanny ability to run into familiar faces time and time again will probably have him crossing paths with Seungcheol soon enough. It helps that Seungcheol allows Wonwoo to keep Chilli, insisting that he clearly needs the company more. Wonwoo argues, grumbles about it the entire time as he docks the Uju, but his grip never lets up on the cat. Jihoon can’t help but gag a little when he catches him scratching it behind the ears, promising it they’ll be back soon.

Jihoon has been to his fair share of casinos throughout the galaxy, but even the frequent exposure makes him no more a fan of the too-bright neon signs and greasy clientele. He’s always hated shady people, but casino regulars were the worst. At least actual criminals had alibis. Gamblers just had lots of debt.

“Okay,” Wonwoo begins, hands on his hips and displeasure plain on his face, “so I say we both split up to cover more ground.”

Jihoon nods. That much was obvious. But Wonwoo continues.

“And could you please not play? Your eyes are too sharp. It’ll draw too much attention. They’ll kick us out.”

Jihoon frowns at him. “You’re no fun. If you didn’t want me to play, you shouldn’t have brought me here.”

It’s not the first time he’s been to Oberon’s Belt, so when he and Wonwoo split up, Jihoon heads straight towards the Baccarat room, making sure to take a couple detours as he goes just to get the lay of the land.

As he drifts through the glowing slots and brightly-colored tables, a heated game of Blackjack catches his eye. And maybe Wonwoo told him he couldn’t play because he’d win too easily, but he hadn’t said anything about watching other people lose—and really, what was the difference if it all brought the same joy?

The crowd that had amassed around the table is hard to permeate but not impossible—Jihoon begrudgingly thanks his smaller stature for that—and when he makes his way to the front, he finds a man with his head in his hands and a vein violently protruding from his neck. In front of him is a dealer with the smuggest look on his face that Jihoon has ever seen, his fingers caressing his own card before him as he waits for the gambler to flip his card.

“I’m waiting,” the dealer purrs, leaning forward as he puts more pressure on the card under his fingertips.

Jihoon can’t help himself. Quickly scanning the table, both the man’s, the other players’, and the dealer’s expressions, it’s easy enough to read the game. He reaches right through and taps the card under the gambler’s fingers several times. “Say your prayers.”

With a confused grunt, the gambler looks up at Jihoon and quickly flips the card, revealing a nine of diamonds that now sits sadly next to his already flipped ten of hearts.

It’s the dealer’s turn again then, and he effortlessly flips the lone card next to his ace of hearts.

“Queen makes twenty-one,” he says easily, before pulling the large pile of chips in his direction.

The gambler slumps forward defeatedly in his chair before shoving himself away from the table, the weight of his new debt so crushing that it’s almost tangible to Jihoon. He watches him go before looking back at the dealer; a placid smile graces the man’s lips as he shuffles the deck and in that moment Jihoon wants nothing more than to wipe it right off his face. Cocky bastards were almost as bad as gamblers.

“You mind if I join?”

For the first time, the dealer looks Jihoon straight in the eye; it’s brief, and if Jihoon hadn’t had such a trained eye he wouldn’t have noticed it, but there’s a flicker of emotion in the man’s gaze. Before Jihoon can make out what it is, the dealer fixes his smirk back on his face.

“My pleasure,” he says, nodding at the empty seat.

Jihoon doesn’t have to pay much attention to the game to do well. With just the first round, he cracks the dealer’s code only too easily; it’s little to do with strategy, and everything to do with his charm. (The obviously hidden aces up his sleeves help a little, too.) He feels a bit bad for the other players around them, all but eating out of the palm of the dealer’s hand. The man’s face is all sharp lines, an angular nose and high cheekbones, anchored together by a knife-like jaw, but there’s something soft to it too, an almost childlike delicacy that makes him seem less threatening but in reality makes him all the more dangerous. But it’s his eyes that really cast the spell. Locking eyes with him feels like looking down the barrel of a gun and as he stares at Jihoon from the other side of the Blackjack table, Jihoon can feel the hairs on the back of his neck begin to rise. It’s an odd thrill, but not entirely unwelcome.

Round after round passes, and Jihoon doesn’t win every time but neither does anyone else. It’s clear the dealer has doubled down his efforts, paying little mind to anyone else but Jihoon. And though his mellifluous voice betrays nothing, there’s a fire in his eyes now as he looks at Jihoon, and it’s got Jihoon glued to his seat.

The man is beautiful. Jihoon’s right eyeball may be fake, but he’s not blind. But Jihoon’s not one to fall for pretty boys and under the dealer’s cool and calm exterior, Jihoon can sense something more sinister starting to simmer. As he gazes back with a smirk of his own, Jihoon can only think how nice it would be to finally crack the dealer’s immaculate facade and see him boil over. It’s obvious that this man isn’t used to losing. But neither is Jihoon.

“The final hand,” the dealer announces once all the other players have left, leaving only Jihoon behind with a large pile of poker chips and an even larger audience. The man deftly shuffles the deck once more, eyes still locked on Jihoon’s own.

“What a shame,” Jihoon sighs as he’s dealt a five of spades and a seven of diamonds. “It appears I’m not skillful and I’m not lucky either.”

“Then what are you?” the dealer purrs, balancing the next card between his pointer and middle finger like it’s some kind of weapon.

Jihoon knocks on the table, calling for a hit. “I seem to be very generous.”

The dealer cocks his head, a short and pensive hmph coming from his lips, as he deals Jihoon the card. An eight of spades.

It’s no surprise to Jihoon that when the dealer flips his own remaining card, it’s the ace of spades—a perfect complement to the jack of spades next to it.

“Another blackjack,” the dealer declares, voice dripping with honey as he sweeps his arms wide at the table in front of him before shifting the large pile of poker chips back to his side of the table.

“You cleaned me out,” Jihoon admits easily, raising his last remaining poker chip to his bionic right eye. “All but this one chip. Think I’ll keep it as a souvenir.”

He gets up, having lost interest, and decides to finally make way for the Baccarat room. He stuffs one hand in his pocket, the other casually flipping the poker chip in midair, and as he leaves, Jihoon can hear the dealer’s facade finally crack, shouting after him. He can’t really make out the words through the din of the casino, but he doesn’t really care. The imperturbable man had finally cracked. His job was done. Time to get back to Hoshi.

Jihoon’s walking along, not paying much mind to where he’s heading, when a scrawny man crashes into him. The man doesn’t apologize, doesn’t even take the time to look Jihoon in the face, just scrambles to grab something off the floor before bolting in the other direction. Jihoon’s so caught off guard that he doesn’t notice he’s dropped his poker chip until he spots it on the ground in the man’s wake.

“Hey you! What happened to your generosity?” comes a shout behind him. “You’re messing up the whole plan!”

Jihoon is roughly spun around by the shoulder, fingers digging sharply into his clavicle, only to come face-to-face with the Blackjack dealer, now looking very stressed.

“I’m sorry, what?”

“Don’t play stupid!” the man presses, eyes surprisingly wide, his voice rising with every word. “You’re supposed to give me that last chip!”

Not a word makes sense to Jihoon, but it’s the jab at his intelligence that he latches onto, especially by someone who’s clearly such a novice. “You’re pretty brash,” he bites, letting his petty side get the best of him. “You cheated the whole game and I didn’t say a word.”

The dealer visibly bristles at the words. “Just give me the damn chip!”

Jihoon looks at the paltry chip in his fingers and, without much thought, flips it right into his mouth and swallows. The thrill of his little one-on-one with the dealer was long gone; might as well get some kind of joy by pushing his buttons even further.

“What the fuck are you doing!?” the man bridles, leaning into Jihoon’s space.

Jihoon leans away, nonchalantly raising his hands behind his head, and closing his eyes as he lets the other ramble on. He’s here for Hoshi and this is getting tiresome. Jihoon hardly notices that the man is still going until he starts to hear the chatter around them grow in volume, mostly about the dealer’s less than legal tactics. A sudden and unexpected woosh of air brings him back to his senses and Jihoon opens his eyes, and sidesteps the punch aimed at him only just.

Ah. The security. Wonwoo wasn’t going to like this.

He makes quick work of the guards—weaving in and out of their gigantic forms was only too easy—but even still, he barely has time to wipe his hands of the blood before a small ship is zooming towards him, so fast it feels like it appears out of thin air.

His eyes come into focus, only just making out the tacky tiger design on the side of the ship as it stops right before him and the dealer quickly hops inside.

_Interesting._

It’s probably only a second, and in that moment Jihoon thanks his brain for being able to work as fast as it does, but he grabs onto the ship right before it shoots off towards the end of the casino, fingers scrambling for purchase against the glass of the ship’s windshield. When the dealer locks eyes with him from behind the wheel, Jihoon can’t help the dopey smile that graces his face. Looks like he’s won after all.

-

Lucky for Jihoon, the dealer has enough heart to return him to the Uju. (“I don’t like killing people if I can avoid it,” he’d said.) The man, however, is not as lucky.

“I helped you get back here. Why are you locking me up!?” he yells, straining against the handcuffs chaining him to the Uju’s toilet.

Wonwoo picks up Chilli from where he’s weaving between his feet before peering at the man. “My cat thinks you smell like money and I’m under the same impression.”

“I’m not, I’m just here to get that damn chip from this idiot!”—Jihoon takes offense to that—”but he fucking swallowed it!”

Jihoon softly punches his gut, and the chip comes right back up his throat only too easily. “Oh, this one?” The dealer struggles against his restraints again. “What about it?”

The man groans before explaining, frustration bubbling in his voice. “It’s got a hacking program on it and you were supposed to give it to me so I could get it to my boss. If you let me go, it’ll be worth at least 200k, just please let me go.”

“Yeah, okay,” Jihoon says and the man starts to sputter. “I think we’re gonna keep you locked up here just a little bit longer. If your boss cares enough, he’ll come looking for you, right?” He doesn’t wait for an answer before he shuts the door in the man’s face.

Wonwoo’s typing away furiously at their ship’s one tiny computer, examining the chip in a way that Jihoon knows is going to strain his eyes later. It’s a miracle a man with such poor eyesight could captain their ship.

“Looks like it is a microchip,” he says but Jihoon’s hardly listening. He’s got his legs kicked up on their table as he reclines on the dumpy couch and tunes into _BIG SHOT_. The night’s daily listing pops up, big and bright, with a now only too familiar face plastered across the screen. How about that, Jihoon thinks to himself.

“Howdy partners!” greets the over-the-top host as he theatrically spins a handgun around his fingers. “Today we’ve got a rootin’-tootin’ bounty for ya!”

The female co-host of BIG SHOT tips her cowboy hat as more details flash across the screen. “That’s right, cowboys and cowgirls! The ever elusive Hoshi has been found! And even better, he’s now worth 6,000,000 woolongs!”

A pair of sharp, glittering eyes glares back at Jihoon, the ghost of a smirk across the rest of the bounty’s features. He thinks back to the blackjack game and then to the impudent man chained up in their toilet. His beauty was wasted on him, no doubt about that.

There’s no need to pay attention to the rest of the details of the bounty listing. Hoshi had fallen right into their lap.

“Wonwoo, I think you’re gonna wanna see this.”

“But the chip—”

“Trust me,” he says, shifting the television in Wonwoo’s direction. Chilli meows and Wonwoo’s mouth drops open.

-

“What do you want?” the dealer gripes as Jihoon presses the button to open the bathroom door.

“We’ve had a change of heart,” Wonwoo says.

“6,000,000 fat woolongs,” Jihoon sighs as he casually leans against the door of the bathroom, gesturing at the man before him. “The 200k you’re offering for this worthless chip is practically chump change, Hoshi.”

Jihoon expects some kind of lashing out at the man’s identity reveal, or at least some kind of vehement denial, but what he gets instead is an incredulous, “6,000,000? That’s it? I’m worth more than that!”

”What do you mean, ‘that’s it?’” Wonwoo asks, astonished. “Just how much money do you owe anyway?”

“Come on, have a heart. Take me anywhere but the police,” Hoshi begs, bottom lip jutting out in a way that makes it seem like it’s habit.

“They’re the only ones who’ll pay your bounty,” Wonwoo supplies.

Hoshi only strains against his chains further, his heeled boots desperately scratching the bathroom tile. Great, another thing we’ll have to get fixed. “I can’t be stuck in one place very long, it’ll kill me! My whole family is like that!”

“Yeah, right.” Jihoon quirks a brow.

“Come on, I’m a wanderer! For years my whole family has traveled the stars, looking for love, it’s our way,” Hoshi’s voice swells dramatically and Jihoon almost wants to throw up. “I can’t be left to rot away in some jail cell! Even you should understand that, pretty boy,” he continues, looking imploringly at Jihoon. “It would be a travesty to beauty and true love everywhere—”

He shuts the door in Hoshi’s face. Some people just talked too much.

-

They’re headed towards the nearest ISSP branch after Wonwoo picks up the spare parts they need for the ship when, without warning, a large ship comes up uncomfortably close behind them, causing Wonwoo to almost burst a vein in stress.

A request for a voice transmission comes in and he accepts. A gruff voice comes through the other end and cuts right to the chase. “I know you have Hoshi onboard. Please hand over him and the poker chip. We’ll give you 30,000,000 woolongs.”

Wonwoo looks at Jihoon and that’s all it takes to come to a decision. As Jihoon goes to suit up, he hears Wonwoo continue.

“Three years ago, the ISD developed the program Cryptbreaker and rumor has it that after its completion, the programmer turned up dead. The program disappeared, a program with advanced artificial intelligence. It can decrypt and unlock virtually any security code. But the catch is, the program itself is encoded. So whoever has it, needs the key to open it. The key to the key, so to speak. They say the cops and the ISSP special forces have been searching every corner of the galaxy for it. Guess they never thought to look in a casino. Or even if they did, who’d ever suspect a humble poker chip?”

The voice on the other end of the transmission laughs humorlessly. “You know what you’re talking about. Looks like you've done your homework.”

Jihoon chuckles to himself as he sees Wonwoo cross his arms over his broad chest. “I used to be a member of the ISSP in another lifetime.”

The other voice hums appreciatively but says nothing more, so Wonwoo continues. “My partner is coming up with the chip. He’ll hand it over. But if you don’t pay us first, we’ll turn you over to the police.”

Jihoon puts his helmet on just in time to hear the other man agree easily enough before cutting the transmission. Wonwoo turns in his seat to look at him. “Just be ready,” he says, “don’t get caught off guard.”

“Okie dokie,” Jihoon says with a salute before making his way to the ship’s exterior door.

It takes him a few moments to float up to the other ship but once he flips the switch to initiate his space suit’s gravity force and his feet hit the surface, he sees another man about a dozen meters away with a briefcase in hand. He’s standing on the other side of the ship’s rotating outer walkway, coming in and out of view as a result, and when the metal beams pass, the man nods at him and Jihoon nods back.

“Beautiful,” comes the other man’s voice again, this time over the transmission in Jihoon’s suit. “Now we will both count to three, then we’ll release the magnetic field and move it up towards you. At the exact same time, you will toss the chip carefully to us.”

“No problem,” Jihoon answers, carefully watching the rotating beams. He sees the other man crouch down towards the briefcase, as if to open it.

“On your count,” comes the voice in his head.

Jihoon waits a moment as neither of them moves, the man coming in and out of view as the ship rotates in front of him. “One,” Jihoon finally says.

“Two,” says the other voice. The other man reaches behind the briefcase, and Jihoon leans into his knees, shifting his weight into his toes.

_Oh, these novices._

“Three,” Jihoon says, kicking off against the ship as hard as he can at the same moment that the walkway rotates to block him from view. He can’t hear it, but the impact of the bullets hitting the metal of the ship is visible and as he floats towards the top of the ship, he can see the gun in the other man’s hand.

He starts firing at Jihoon frantically, but frantic shooters were the easiest to overcome. Jihoon kicks off the side of the ship and quickly soars back down to him, easily grabbing the man’s wrist and wrestling the gun out of his grip. He then switches off the man’s gravity field on his suit, which instantly sends him soaring in the other direction but Jihoon aims a swift quick into his gut just for good measure. Can never be too safe.

“Woozi, Woozi!” comes Wonwoo’s flustered voice over the transmission and Jihoon can feel the force of another boom in the distance, but he pays it no mind as he looks at the poker chip clasped safely in his hand.

Suddenly, a ragged pod racer with an oriental tiger on the side rises up right next to him in midair, and as he looks more closely he sees Hoshi smirking at him from the front seat.

“Huh?”

“Hey there, pretty boy,” Hoshi says, as he smugly blows a kiss in Jihoon’s direction.

Before Jihoon even has time to react, a metal claw swoops out of the racer and grabs the briefcase next to him before quickly recoiling back into Hoshi’s ship.

“Bye,” Hoshi croons, the glint from the casino back in his narrowed eyes.

“Hey!” Jihoon calls as Hoshi only too easily jets away, but at the same moment, the ship starts firing missiles after his racer and Jihoon, in the middle of it all, is all but defenseless as explosives go whirring past him too close for comfort.

“Get me out of here!” he yells to Wonwoo.

“Alright!” is all that Wonwoo has time to reply before a wayward missile comes ricocheting back in Jihoon’s direction.

“Christ,” he says under his breath, the missile just missing him by a meter, as he floats into space. Just as his feet make contact with the surface of the Uju, the missile sails into the cockpit of the other ship with a gruesome explosion.

He looks in the direction that the missile came from and sees Hoshi’s racer speeding off in the distance, now but a metallic glimmer in the infinity of the cosmos.

He looks down at the chip in his hand, now virtually worthless. “Looks like he beat me again.”

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> I'll be updating once a week from now on so if you enjoyed these first two chapters, pls look forward to that!
> 
> thank you for reading!


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